Once I Rose Above
by TheFreakWithTheWings
Summary: Buffy jumped into Glory's portal and landed in a desert.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy or the Dresden Files, sadly.

-‹◊›-

Buffy kissed Dawn on the cheek, knowing it would be the last time she saw her sister alive.

"Be brave. Live. For me." she told Dawn, ignoring the tears that streamed down her sister's face.

Buffy felt as if she should be in turmoil because, after all, she was about to die for the second and final time. But this was always about the blood. Summer's blood. And her death was the only gift she could give to her loved ones now. Her mind was clear of everything except her purpose as she ran to the edge of the platform and dove into the portal.

The magical lightning that played over her body was excruciatingly painful, but the pain was soon over as her soul swiftly departed.

Buffy's body thumped into a pile of rubble, and her friends and fellow world savers gathered around it to grieve the loss of their loved one. They had defeated Glory, but at a terrible cost.

They couldn't find words to express how much she meant to them, so when they buried her, they kept it simple: She saved the world. A lot.

And then they tried to return to their lives, despite the gaping hole Buffy's death had left, yet they couldn't.

However, this story is not about the ones who were left behind; it is about a girl, a Chosen One, who will bring hope to a world in desperate need of it.

-‹◊›-

Buffy woke up in pain.

Obviously, everything she had heard about the afterlife was a lie. Either that, or she wasn't dead. Which shouldn't be possible, considering that she had jumped into the big ol' Portal of Doom. Going by the surprising amount of pain she was experiencing, she was going to go with option number two: she was still alive. Yay.

She rolled over and pushed herself to her feet with a groan, almost wishing that she actually was dead. She slumped back to the ground and blacked out from the pain, and when she came to, the sun was shining right into her eyes.

The pain from the energies in the portal had faded, thanks to her slayer healing, and so she sat up, noticing for the first time that she had landed in a desert. The first slayer's desert. It looked exactly as it had the last two times she had seen it, right down to the mud painted figure crouching in front of her.

Buffy blinked a few times to allow her eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness and to make sure she wasn't hallucinating.

Nope. Sineya was still there.

"Are you here to chop down my trees?" Buffy asked, rubbing her head. If the First Slayer was gonna try to kill her friends again, she wanted to be ready.

"No. We must hurry," the First Slayer said as she pulled Buffy to her feet. "They will have sensed your arrival and will soon start looking for you."

Buffy wrenched her hand away and took a step back. "Who? And why should I trust you in the first place?"

The First Slayer bared her teeth in frustration. "There is no time. They are here."

Buffy looked around warily, but she couldn't see anything. She turned back to Sineya to see that she had taken advantage of her inattention to run at Buffy in an attempt to do… something. Buffy settled back into a defensive stance, a witty quip on her tongue, but the First Slayer simply leaped at her and disappeared.

She spun in a slow circle, looking for where the First Slayer might have gone. She didn't see her, but she did see what looked like a wall in the distance. It was the only landmark in sight, so she began to head towards it.

-‹◊›-

Buffy had been walking for longer than she cared to count, and the gate hadn't gotten any bigger. She hadn't gotten tired either. If anything, she was stronger than she had ever been. She felt almost like she could have taken on Glory and come out on top.

Other things had shown up as she walked though, and they were undoubtedly inhuman. It was painful to look at them because they had too many eyes, limbs, claws, teeth. They were just a little bit out of sync with reality.

It didn't mean she couldn't kill them.

The first one to come at her had too many tentacles and it was dripping with acid. To the surprise of both, the acid burns healed almost immediately. At least, Buffy thought the tentacle monster was surprised. It was a little hard to tell due to its lack of anything resembling a face.

"Well that wasn't very nice." she said.

The tentacle demon burbled and flailed in her general direction.

Buffy wished she had a sword, or maybe a spear. Something that would let her kill the demon without getting in range of its tentacles. However, there was nothing that could even remotely be used as a weapon, unless the monster was allergic to sand.

So, she turned and ran towards the gate.

It ended up being a good choice because whatever the First Slayer had done to her hadn't only upgraded her healing. She was now faster than she had even known was possible.

As she ran, more and more uber demons began following her. Not all of them were as slow as the tentacle monster, but none of them were fast enough to catch her.

The landscape began to change. The temperature dropped, and white stones began to show up, scattered at first, but more numerous the closer to the gate she got. Then she tripped over one, and the grinning face of a skull stared back at her. The ground was littered with bones.

Her stomach rolled, and she almost lost what little food was in her stomach to begin with. But then she saw the demons behind her, gaining ground with each second she lay there. So, Buffy picked herself up and continued running.

Before long, the ground disappeared under the sheer number of bones. The good news was that she was getting closer to the gate. The bad news was that a giant mass of the demons was in front of her. She really needed a weapon of some kind.

-‹◊›-

Buffy wiped demon gunk from her forehead and flung it away, her face crinkled with disgust.

Whatever Sineya had done to her had increased her strength by at least ten times, and she had used her newfound strength to rip apart the first few demons that had come after her. Then she had gotten lucky, and a spiny demon came after her. The three-foot long bone spine that she broke off of it made for an excellent weapon. She would have named it Mr. Spiky, but it reminded her too much of the bleached blond menace.

Her brief respite from battle was soon ended when a furry demon with at least five horns on its head charged at her, and so she leaped back into the fray.

Her focus narrowed as she danced with death; slashing, hacking, and stabbing the demons. There were too many of them for her to take on at once, so when they fell, Buffy couldn't make sure that they were truly dead before another one occupied her attention. All she knew was the dance, and it was all that mattered.

She froze at the touch of cold metal against her neck.

A voice that sounded like the sound ice makes when it strikes ice said something in a lyrical language.

"Sorry, but I don't speak elf." Buffy said as she turned around, her hands in the air. The man with the sword looked like an elf, with blonde hair and pointy ears, and he definitely wasn't human if the tingling in her gut was anything to go by. There were four more elves with him, and they were all wearing a strange sort of armor that looked as if it had been carved out of black ice.

A cold expression slid onto Blondie's face. "You imitate a human well."

Buffy frowned. "Who's imitating? I'm one hundred percent human. No creepy demon girl here."

Blondie narrowed his eyes at her before he turned and spoke to one of his comrades in the lyrical language.

Buffy opened her mouth to complain about the sudden language switch, but a glare from Blondie had her reconsidering. She could probably take them, especially with the upgrade from the First Slayer, but they were the first thing even resembling people that she had seen since arriving in this dimension. Sineya didn't count.

One of the elves, a black haired one, suddenly picked her up and slung her over his shoulder, ignoring her cry of outrage, and the group of elves began running back to the gate. At first, Buffy was worried that they would be overwhelmed by demons, but they rounded a hill of bones and she could see an entire army of the elves. She would never admit it, but the constant fighting had been tiring, so she took the opportunity to rest and recover the energy she had lost.

"Where are we going?" Buffy whined, channeling Dawn.

The elves conversed in their lyrical language for a while, their tones growing angrier as time went on. Buffy wasn't stupid, she could tell they were arguing about her. If she had to guess, she would say that Blondie was suspicious of her and wanted to kill her while Blackie was curious and wanted to see what she knew.

Blackie appeared to have won the argument because he answered her. "We are taking you to see the Gatekeeper."


	2. Chapter 2

The Gatekeeper turned out to be a tall, skinny human wearing a hooded cloak with only one eye. The other eye had been replaced with what looked like metal. He had stepped out from the enormous gate to meet them.

The gate was easily taller than any of the skyscrapers she had seen in L.A. It had looked like a normal gate in any old fence when she had first arrived in this dimension. She didn't even want to contemplate how far she had come or the damage it had done to her shoes.

Buffy had been preparing to confront a more powerful version of the elves, or even another uber demon, so the fact that the elves obviously deferred to him made her nervous. Demons were typically only afraid of people with a lot of power, like the Mayor. Or Willow. Maybe the Gatekeeper was just really powerful like Willow, and he used his power for good. And maybe she would walk through the gate to find a shopping mall on the other side.

Blackie had dumped her on the ground, which prompted an annoyed "Hey!" from her.

The Gatekeeper began talking with the elves in the same lyrical language while Buffy picked herself up from the ground. There weren't any uber demons nearby, but the elves had taken her bone spine away when they had captured her. She would need to be aware of her surroundings.

Buffy brushed bone dust from her pants then crossed her arms across her chest while she waited for them to acknowledge her. She sighed and began tapping her foot against the ground. There were so many bones. The elves' fight with the uber demons must have been going on for thousands of years, if the sheer number of bones was anything to go by. And the elves hadn't been fighting alone either, unless they were hiding five-foot long bones, like the one by Buffy's foot, somewhere.

While staring at the giant bone, Buffy was struck with an idea. It was a really obvious one too; she was mentally kicking herself for not thinking of it earlier. The elves had taken the spine she was using as a weapon, but if they left her out here, or tried to attack her, she could easily use one of the countless bones that dominated the landscape to defend herself.

"Stupid Buffy," she muttered. "Way to miss the obvious."

"Would that be your name then?" the Gatekeeper asked, startling her with his sudden switch to English. She had thought he could only speak the same language as the elves, but she was definitely wrong on that count. His accent sounded a little like Giles', and Buffy was struck with a sudden longing to be back in Sunnydale.

Hopefully her friends would realize she wasn't dead yet and bring her back soon. Willow was becoming a really strong witch and Giles could make with the research, and then she could go home. Time worked differently between dimensions, and she could be here for a long time. For now she would have to work on staying alive, and that meant appeasing the natives.

So she gave the Gatekeeper her best blank cheerleader smile and said. "Summers. Buffy Summers." And she had accidentally ended up channeling Xander and making a Bond reference. Damn. Well, on the bright side, if he recognized the reference, then they probably had more to this dimension than just deserts, demons, and bones.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I've never heard of a human named Buffy."

She dropped the Valley girl act and glared at him. "My mother gave me that name."

His lips quirked at the corners of his mouth. "I've never heard of an Outsider who watched James Bond movies."

Uh oh. Outsider was probably what they called the uber demons. "Who's an Outsider? Definitely not me. I'm something that's the opposite of an Outsider. In fact, I'm an Insider. And now I'm starting to babble. Shutting up now."

Blondie rolled his eyes and said something to the Gatekeeper in the lyrical language. He nodded at the elf and replied in the same language. Buffy really wished they would stop talking in it because they could obviously speak English.

"We must determine for ourselves that you are human if you are to pass through the Gate." the Gatekeeper said.

Buffy shrugged. "What do you need me to do?" If they asked for anything she was uncomfortable with, she could always run away.

"Look into my eyes."

The Gatekeeper didn't feel like a demon, and he probably couldn't ensnare her with his gaze a la Dracula. His request seemed reasonable, so she looked into his eyes. Nothing happened until she had held them for a moment, after which the world exploded into a maelstrom of colors.

The predominant colors were black, purple, blue, and gold, but they were somehow more than that. The black was soft, kind, and solid like sleep, a blurred mass that made up a large portion of what she could see. It was an unwavering, uncompromising color. The purple was twisted and seemed to be entwined with the other three colors, and it radiated smug satisfaction, similar to a cat. The blue was a radiant shade that was deep and endless, but it was at the lighter end of the spectrum, like the sky on a cloudless day. The gold was sharp and protective. More than anything, it reminded her of a set of carefully crafted armor. She had never actually worn armor, but in one of the dreams she had of past Slayers before she was Called the Slayer had worn armor. All together, the colors were beautiful, and Buffy could feel tears begin to slide down her cheeks. She blinked, and the colors were gone.

She hurriedly wiped the tears from her face, and her mind was forcibly returned to the present. Who knows what the elves could have done while she was distracted by the pretty colors?

She was shocked to see that the Gatekeeper was crying as well. Well, if a single tear could be counted as crying. What had he seen?

He inclined his head in her direction when he noticed her scrutiny, a gesture of respect from one warrior to another. She nodded back.

"Well?" Blondie asked, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "What is she?"

Buffy could tell that he was hoping for a negative verdict so that he could kill her.

"Ms. Summers is human, and she is deserving of our respect. If she desires to go through the Gate, we will let her." the Gatekeeper calmly replied.

"Darn, I _really _wanted to stay out here with the creepy Outsiders." Buffy snarked.

"You heard her, she wishes to remain in the Outside." Blondie said.

"It's called sarcasm, Blondie, although I can see why you might have missed it." Buffy said.

Blondie growled and pulled his sword out a few inches.

Buffy laughed. Blondie had about the same level of witty quips as Sunnydale's villain of the week. That is to say, none.

The Gatekeeper seemed to be amused, if the slight quirk at the corner of his mouth was any indication. She got the feeling that he was used to hiding his emotions, and if he didn't want her to know he was amused, she wouldn't have.

"Shall we go through the Gate?" Blackie asked, breaking up the one-sided banter she had going on with Blondie.

The Gatekeeper laid his hand against a portion of the Gate that was level with his chest and pushed. It swung open like, well, a gate. He gestured for Buffy to go first, and so she stepped through the small opening in the enormous Gate and promptly tripped on something.

Before she hit the ground, though, a feeling akin to a punch in the gut had her gasping for breath. A pounding began to build up in the back of her head, and she closed her eyes and doubled over.

When the pain finally abated, she opened her eyes to find that she was in the middle of a ghost town that, from the temperature, was in the middle of a desert. Great. Why did it always have to be deserts?


	3. Chapter 3

The ghost town had been abandoned for some time, if the crumbling old well Buffy had landed by was any indication, but it was still inhabited. The huge crowd of people staring at her was proof enough of that. The enticing aroma of fresh coffee told her that it was morning, as did the cereal that one of the people had spilled on himself when she had appeared out of thin air.

The people were all young, the oldest looked as if he was in his thirties and the youngest ones were about her age. For the most part, they looked like a normal group of young adults on a camping trip, but there were some things that were a little off. All of them had a staff, wand, chain, or other implement that Buffy knew, from extended exposure to Willow, could be used to conduct and enhance magic. Although, the boomerang might have been stretching it. Everyone, even the men, had a large number of extremely tacky jewelry on. Buffy was really hoping that the jewelry was had to do with magic and wasn't a fashion statement. Also, all of them were tense, as if they were expecting to be attacked at any moment. Although, that could have had something to do with Buffy's sudden appearance.

Considering that she had landed in this dimension's version of Hogwarts, she felt that it was pretty safe to assume that the Gatekeeper had been a magic user too.

A Hispanic man with a silver sword, which Buffy was really jealous of, and a strange metal glove on his left hand was the first to approach her. He had just opened his mouth to speak when she sensed the sudden appearance of four demons. A second later gunfire ripped apart the shocked silence caused by her arrival.

"Get down!" Buffy shouted as she grabbed the two people closest to her and pushed them to the ground.

The others all ran for cover, but not fast enough if the pained cries were any indication. Some of the magic users had simply fallen because they had been shot in the legs or were in too much pain to move. For a moment, she was torn. Should she help the injured, or should she go after the demons that were shooting at them?

Then, beneath the cacophony Buffy heard two more screams. If she had been at her normal level, she might have registered them at the edge of her range of hearing, but now she could hear them clearly. And they were coming from the same direction that she had registered the demons from.

Buffy wasn't a healer; she couldn't do anything for the injured. They didn't need her to defend them either if the hole that the Hispanic man had blown in a wall, taking out two of the demons, was any indication of the magic users' skills. Also, she could see two more people running towards them. There wasn't really any choice at all.

Buffy ran as fast as she could, following her spidey sense to the demons.

One of the demons was much closer than the other, and he began to shoot at her as she ran towards him. She could feel that Sineya's gift was gradually leaking away with every second she spent in this dimension, so the bullet that lodged itself in her arm slowed her for a fraction of a second. Her healing wasn't instantaneous like it had been when she was fighting the Outsiders, but it was still much faster than usual.

Once she reached the demon, Buffy could see that it didn't have any hostages. So, she decided to kill it quickly by snapping its neck. Or, at least, that was the plan. She may have accidentally misjudged her strength and ripped its head off. On the plus side, it was no longer shooting at the magic users. On the down side, Buffy was now splattered with even more demon blood.

"Ew, ew, ew." Buffy muttered as she tossed the demon's head away.

One of the magic users, a really tall one that she hadn't seen before, had started running in her direction, the Hispanic one following him. Buffy hesitated for a second before turning and sprinting in the direction in which she could feel the last of the demons.

Her senses led her down an abandoned tunnel. She stopped for only a few seconds at an intersection before taking the left tunnel. It was dark enough that she could barely see anything, but her other senses worked well enough that she was able to navigate the tunnels without any difficulty.

Soon, she didn't need to depend on her spidey sense to lead her on because she could hear struggling up ahead.

Unfortunately, her vision was good enough for her to see that the demon had already started on its victims. The girl was unconscious, but Buffy couldn't tell whether or not she was injured. The demon had taken a big chunk out of the boy's leg, and it was bleeding heavily. If he didn't get help soon, he would die, but the demon had to be taken care of first.

It must have heard Buffy approach, for it turned and snarled at her. The demon leapt, its hands clawed and aimed at her throat. She was faster though, and, because it had worked so well last time, Buffy twisted its head off.

The demon's headless body slumped forward, blood leaking all over her shoes. It was lucky that the Outsiders had already ruined her shoes, or she would have found a way to bring it back to life to kill it all over again. Seriously, could she not catch a break?

Apparently not, because the boy had just slumped over in an obvious faint. Buffy didn't know much about first aid despite the many times she had had to be patched up by Giles, but even she knew that fainting from blood loss was a bad sign.

Buffy was fairly certain that she needed to make a tourniquet based on the sheer amount of blood that the boy was still losing. She pulled off his belt and wrapped it tightly around his leg above the wound. Hopefully that would work.

Next to her, the girl began to stir.

"Where am I?" she asked, blinking slowly. Buffy really hoped she didn't have some sort of head injury.

"In an old mining tunnel, I think. Geography was never really my strong suit in school." Buffy said.

The girl nodded as if the response had been perfectly normal. Which, considering she was a magic user, it could have been. Willow had told her some wacky tales about what some of her fellow witches had gotten up to in the past. For all Buffy knew, demonic kidnappings could be an almost daily occurrence for them.

"Wait, where'd the ghoul go?" the girl asked, her eyes widening in fear. "Where's my brother? Have you done something to him? Terry? Terry, where are you? TERRY?!"

"Hey, your brother's right next to you. He's just fainted," Buffy said as soothingly as possible. "Probably from blood loss."

From the way the girl's face paled, it probably hadn't been a good idea to tell her about that. At that moment, Buffy would have wanted to face another ghoul rather than a hysterical teenager. Her job description was Slayer, after all, not Soother, or something like that. Give her a vampire and she was of the good, but their victims were a whole 'nother story.

"So…. what's your name?" Buffy asked when it became apparent that the girl wasn't going to speak.

The girl just pushed Buffy out of the way and curled up next to her unconscious brother. They both settled in to wait for the help to arrive in an awkward silence.

A/N: I didn't intend for this chapter to be so late. Whoops. And no Harry either. Dang, I really thought he would show up. He will show up next chapter, though.


	4. Chapter 4

A few minutes into their waiting, Buffy heard someone running down the mine shaft. The rescue team had arrived.

The really tall man was the first to reach them. He held his staff out in front of him to use as a light, and the snarl on his face would have made a normal person weak-kneed in terror. As it was, Buffy was glad she had super Slayer strength to back her up because this guy had almost two feet of height on her, and she could detect a faint demonic presence from him. It wasn't much, but then the Mayor hadn't felt like anything until just a few moments before his Ascension. Then, he had felt just like the really tall guy in front of her.

Buffy really needed to find a good weapon.

"Get away from them!" the guy yelled, pointing his staff at her.

Buffy stood up and backed away, her hands above her head. Tall, scary guy seemed to be working with the magic users, so they probably wouldn't appreciate it if she broke him.

"Where's the other ghoul?" he asked.

Buffy pointed to the headless body of the ghoul and then to its head. The guy seemed shocked and then a little fearful.

"Are you working with them? Did you hurt the kids?" he asked.

The girl took the opportunity to speak up. "She killed it and then tried to stop Terry's bleeding."

The guy shot her a glance of fear and suspicion before kneeling down beside the girl. "Are you hurt, Tina?"

She touched her head. "Just from where it knocked me out. Terry got bit though, and he's been like this since before I woke up."

Buffy spoke up at that moment. "The ghoul was chewing his leg when I got here, and he passed out a little while later. I gave him a tourniquet, but he's been unconscious for a few minutes."

The guy cursed. "We don't have any experienced healers with us. Just the Wardens who could make the biggest booms."

Buffy stepped forward and slid her arms underneath Terry.

"Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing?" the guy asked.

"Bringing him back to your camp thing. I'm the strongest and fastest one here, so I'll take him. You help Tina." she said.

The tall guy clenched his jaw, clearly unhappy with the situation, but he nodded. She could see that he knew that the priority was Terry, not whether or not she could be trusted.

Buffy gently lifted Terry, cradled him to her chest, and ran to the entrance.

She met the Hispanic man there. He was panting heavily, but he seemed ready to fight her until he saw the kid in her arms.

Buffy gestured behind her with her head. "Your tall friend is back there with Tina."

He nodded and bent over, gasping for breathe.

"Right, well, I'm just gonna take Terry back to your wizardy camp, okay?"

He just waved at her, so she began running again. It was much more difficult to run while carrying a person. She couldn't use her full speed in case she dropped him. Also, Buffy couldn't see her feet, so she almost tripped over rocks and scraggly plants a few times. She had him back to the camp within a minute though.

All of the people in the camp were too busy setting up the medical center and taking care of the wounded to pay too much attention to her. She set Terry down on an empty bed and let the person who seemed to be in charge of the place know that he was wounded. He seemed a little confused, but there was likely too much going on for him to realize that Buffy wasn't actually one of the magic users.

As she left the medical tent, Buffy saw two small bodies, covered in sheets. Logically, she knew that she wouldn't be able to save everyone, but she was more Slayer than human right now, and the Slayer wanted blood. She could sense two more ghouls being held in another building, and the Slayer in her smiled. She could tell that there was prey nearby.

The Slayer darted along out of sight, making her way towards the ghouls. No one noticed her, or if they did, they assumed that she was one of them. She arrived at the building where they were being held without incident.

It was only after she had slipped inside that someone noticed the Slayer.

"Trainees ain't allowed in here miss," said a man with a Southern drawl. "But then, you don't 'ppear to be one of them. I'm goin' to hafta ask you ta leave now."

Buffy knew that the magic user had probably been left to guard the ghouls, and so that meant that he was likely dangerous. However, she was more Slayer than Buffy at that point, and the Slayer had her prey in her sights. So, she ignored him, her entire being focused on the monsters that needed to be destroyed. One of them was injured, weak. She could take him out with relative ease, and then-

Her train of thought was cut short by what felt like a gigantic hand striking her in the middle of her back and sending her clear across the building. Buffy hit a wall face-first then slid down it to lie in a groaning heap. She knew she shouldn't have ignored the magic user.

She stood up and brushed the dirt from her pants, although by that point it was more than a little futile. She really hoped this dimension had malls, or even just a few stores. She would gladly mutilate something for a decent shoe store.

Buffy stiffened when she felt the barrel of a gun press to the base of her skull.

"I'm gonna need you ta put yer hands above yer head and turn around real slowly." the guard drawled.

Buffy complied, not wanting to get a bullet in her head. Even with the upgrade Sineya had given her, which was still draining away, she might not have been able to heal a shot to the head. Now, with her Slayer powers slowly returning to what they had been at before she had jumped into Glory's portal, she would most definitely die.

The man stepped back and motioned for her to stand next to the ghoul that was uninjured. She glared at him but did as he wanted. This was why she didn't use guns. Give one to a person, and they were suddenly more deadly than most demons. Well, that and vampires could get right back up from a bullet wound.

The ghoul gave her a ghastly grin, as if it was imagining the best way to eat her. Buffy ignored it. If every creature that looked at her like that had unnerved her, she would never have survived her first year of Slaying.

It began taunting her in a language that she didn't understand, which seemed to be a theme of this universe, but she still ignored it. It was only when the ghoul actually touched her that she moved, grabbing its hands and crushing the bones in one of them. It left her alone after that.

The guard didn't attempt to talk to her; he seemed content to wait until his superiors arrived to tell him what to do about the hot chick with super powers that had suddenly shown up to kill the ghouls.

It was to this scene that the really tall guy who had helped her with the kids arrived: the guard silently watching while Buffy glared at the two ghouls who were huddled by themselves and whimpering pitifully.

A/N: Yay some interaction with Harry!


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I own neither BtVS or the Dresden Files

-‹◊›-

"It's alright Meyers," Scruffy said. "She's with us."

Drawly, whose name was apparently Meyers, raised an eyebrow. "The ghouls are afraid of her."

"Well," Scruffy said, smiling wryly. "Why do you think I asked her to show up?"

"Did you clear it with Luccio?" Meyers asked. At Scruffy's sheepish expression he swore explosively. "Damn it Dresden! People are suspicious enough as it is without you bringing in new people who ain't cleared with the Commander. You're in enough trouble with the Council as it is."

Buffy's mind whirled with all of the new information she had heard. Were these men part of the Watcher's Council? Maybe the Warden's were a secret part of the Tweed Club who specialized in magic. If they were part of the Watcher's Council, though, why hadn't they recognized a Slayer when they saw one? And should she even trust them given how the Watcher's Council in her universe, especially Travers and his gang, treated Slayers?

Buffy decided that she would wait and see what happened, even though she was still itching for action. She could feel that part fading though, and the only thing that kept the two h's from making an appearance was the presence of the ghouls.

She was pulled back into the conversation when Scruffy Dresden turned to her.

"You hungry?" he asked.

"I'm hungry enough that any nearby horses better watch out," she said.

Dresden snorted and waved for her to follow him as he walked out of the rundown building. Buffy hesitated, glancing over at the other magic user, but he had turned his attention to the ghouls. Seeing that the slayage - or the guardage as the case may be - was covered, she hurried to follow Dresden to the food.

-‹◊›-

"Stars and stones, Anne, where are you putting that?" Dresden asked.

Buffy had decided to go by Anne until she had learned a little more about this world. One person knowing her name was one person too many, especially if a Buffy Summers existed in this dimension. She didn't want to make another version of herself into a target by throwing her name around. She may not have been the best with the whole secret-identity-means-it's-actually-a-secret thing, but she had spent almost an entire summer as Anne and hadn't run into too much badness.

So, Buffy just gave Dresden the fake smile she had perfected while dealing with idiots of the male variety and kept eating.

Dresden narrowed his eyes and studied her face, never meeting her eyes. "Does a high metabolism come with the monster package?"

Buffy mentally smacked herself in the face. Why on earth had she assumed that the man was an idiot when she herself had used similar routines to pass under people's radar? The blonde, airheaded cheerleader act probably wouldn't even work with this guy if the way he was watching her was any indication.

"So, we're making with the accusations now." Buffy sighed, rolling her eyes. At least no one had tried arresting her yet.

Dresden raised an eyebrow at her mangling of the English language before he said "This is a top secret operation, so just the fact that you showed up at the same time a group of ghouls attacked makes you suspicious, even if you did help out."

"So, would it be too much to ask for a ride to L.A.?" Buffy asked, purposefully ignoring his previous statement. It had worked on Giles in the past.

"Do the words top secret mean nothing to you?" he asked. "We can't just let you leave."

"Does the fact that I saved two people mean nothing to you?" she demanded, echoing his earlier question. "I'm not a monster, and I would never intentionally hurt a person. People save-age is in the job description."

He looked at her for a long moment, searching for any hint of a lie.

"I believe you." he finally said.

Some of the tension leaked from Buffy's shoulders. "Thank you." she said earnestly.

The corners of his mouth twitched. "Yeah, well, I already told Meyers that you were with me , and besides, I know that I would want someone strong enough to rip off a ghoul's head on my side."

Buffy smiled slightly. "Don't worry, head rip-age only happens to the baddies."

He blinked in confusion. "You wouldn't happen to be from California, would you?"

Her smile widened. "How'd you guess?"

He grinned back. "Just a feeling."

She got the impression that he relied on his gut feelings a lot, and so she decided to go with one of her feelings and trust that he could possibly be an ally in this new world. Honestly, even if he didn't seem like a more mature, magical version of her Xander-shaped friend she would probably trust him just a little bit. She had learned well in her years as a Slayer that being alone was what got a Slayer killed, and just because she wasn't in her home dimension anymore didn't mean that rule no longer applied. She wouldn't tell him everything, but maybe he could be an ally.

-‹◊›-

**A/N: Hopefully the next one won't be so late. Ugh.**

**Happy International Fanworks Day**


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: It has been brought to my attention that I should warn people that just because Buffy sees something as one way doesn't mean it is true. Basically, she's an unreliable narrator because she isn't familiar with the Dresden'verse. Also, if you don't recognize a word, it is likely because the author is failing to use a buffyism.

-‹◊›-

Today had been one of the worst days she had had since she had fallen into this dimension. To start, she had been fired from her waitressing job - not at the same hellhole where she had worked back in her L.A., but similar enough, unfortunately. Her boss had been a little upset when she had broken a grabby man's wrist. She had gone patrolling later to loosen up a little, but the streets of Los Angeles had been completely empty of vampires and other demons.

In fact, she had only encountered one vampire in the entire three weeks that she had been in L.A. It wasn't as if there was a Hellmouth here, but it was a big city, there should have been more than just one vampire on her patrol route. It had been a very strange vampire too, more corpse-like than she was used to. It was stronger too, before she had fought her way here and merged with Sineya, or whatever that had been, she wouldn't have been able to defeat it. It hadn't dusted either, which was very wigsome. Vampires had different rules in this universe, and it had unnerved her.

Because she hadn't been able to slay anything after being fired she had decided to go out clubbing for the first time since her arrival in this world. It was soothing, losing herself to the pulse and rhythm of the music. It reminded her a bit of the Bronze, especially because she had just felt the tingle down her spine that meant a vampire was near. Finally.

Buffy glided across the dance floor towards the vampire sitting at the bar, intimately aware of the stake up her left sleeve and the knife in her boot. She would have liked to have more weapons, but they cost money, and stealing reminded her too much of Faith for her to be comfortable with it. Also, it was wrong, even if she was out here risking her neck and asking nothing in return.

The vampire was a tall, dark-haired man with a dangerous glint in his eye that reminded her of Angelus. Tonight was just a night for bad reminders.

Numerous people surrounded him - men and women - who had a glazed look in their eyes. Crap. This vampire could enthrall people.

Buffy mentally prepared the defenses that Giles had helped her to build after her run in with Dracula and walked a little more cautiously in the direction of the vamp, letting a bit of the Slayer flicker in her gaze.

The enthralled people shuffled out of her way, just enough of their instincts left to let them recognize a predator when they saw one.

The vampire didn't deign to notice what his thralls were doing, too busy talking on his phone.

She was able to easily pick up his side of the conversation as she walked towards him.

"Don't worry, I have it"

"Yeah, I'll meet you at the apartment later, I'm just going to grab something to drink."

"I'm not worried about Mallory."

"She wasn't even powerful enough to make the Council, we should be able to take her out easily, even without the amulet."

"I'll talk to you later. Bye."

He shut the phone and stood up, eyes scanning the room. Strangely enough, he didn't see Buffy, even though she was within touching distance of him. Maybe he just assumed she was one of his thralls.

Well, she was just going to have to take care of that.

If this vampire was anything like the other vampire, she wasn't going to be able to subtly stake him on the dance floor and rely on the low lighting and Sunnydale Syndrome to cover up his sudden disappearance. That meant luring him away, probably to an alley. Buffy sighed internally. She had lurked in the alleyways of Sunnydale almost as much as she had lurked in the cemeteries, and it was one part of slaying that she hadn't missed. The sacrifices she made for the world.

Buffy took a moment to slip into her vacant, stereotypical blonde facade before she approached the vampire, a sultry smirk on her face.

"Hey there stranger. Buy a girl a drink?" she asked, leaning up against the bar next to the vampire.

He started and turned towards her, his eyes zeroing in on her neck and his nostrils flaring. "Where did you come from, you intoxicating little thing?" he purred in what Buffy recognized as the Lame-Vampire-Trying-To-Be-Sexy voice. Unfortunately, he wasn't the first, nor would he be the last, to use that tone of voice on her. Before they found out she was the Slayer, of course. Afterwards it was either the I'm-Going-To-Kill-You-Grrrr voice or the Help-Me-Mommy! voice.

Buffy fought the urge to slam the vampire's face repeatedly into the bar. Stupid sexist vampires.

Instead, she pasted on a fake-coy look and playfully slapped the vampire's shoulder, holding back almost all of her strength. "I'm from L.A., silly. I haven't seen you around before though."

Giles would be so proud of her, making with the interrogation-age.

The vampire shrugged, then grabbed her right wrist and stroked at the skin over her pulse. Creepy. Buffy was unable to suppress a shudder of disgust, but he seemed to take it as an expression of desire, which no. Just, no.

"What do you say," the vampire pulled her wrist up to his nose and sniffed her. Gross, gross, gross. "You and I go somewhere a little more private, and I can tell you about my home."

Do. Not. Slay. Do. Not. Slay. Do. Not. Slay. Buffy mentally chanted this mantra over and over again while outwardly she giggled and nodded vapidly, channeling the Cordettes. It took everything she had not to wrench her wrist away from the vampire's face and beat him over the head with her bare fists. Preferably to death.

The vampire stood, towering over her in his tall, freakish vampireness, and tugged on her arm, towing her out of the club and into the alley behind it.

Buffy pretended to stumble and used her momentum to pull her wrist from the vampire's grip. She let her stake fall from her sleeve and into her right hand. Showtime.


	7. Chapter 7

Buffy straightened, stake in her hand. The vampire was leaning against the door of the club, staring at her - no, at her neck. She still had the scars from when the Master, Angel, and, most recently, Dracula had bit her there.

"Did the Red Court send you to kill me?"

"What?" Buffy asked, tilting her head to the side and scrunching up her nose in confusion.

"I stole this amulet fair and square; no bloodsucker's whore is going to take it from me!" the vampire shouted, completely ignoring her question. How rude. Buffy was going to have to beat some manners into him. And then kill him _painfully._

She was so angry and disgusted that she didn't even bother with a witty quip. It would have been wasted on the vampire dirtbag anyways. Instead, she attacked, punching him straight in the nose with the hand that held her stake in it. She had learned from experience that her punches packed even more of a wallop if she held something rolled up in her hands. Buffy mentally added brass knuckles to her list of weapons to obtain while she ducked out of the vampire's reach while he howled, clutching at his nose.

Just before she delivered a sound kick to the side of his head, Buffy saw his eyes turn silver, his skin whiten, and the air around him get colder. She was also fairly certain he started glowing. What a lame vampire.

The vampire stumbled, clutching at the wall, weird colored blood pouring from his face. He hissed at her before lunging, hands grasping for her throat.

Buffy's head slammed back into the wall and she gasped desperately for breath as her stake clattered to the ground. She scrabbled at the hands around her throat before she managed to bring her feet up between their bodies and force him away.

She landed squarely on her feet and punched him once, twice, three times in the face before she reached down and picked up her stake while her opponent was dazed.

Buffy raised her stake and was about to plunge it through the disoriented vampire's unprotected chest and into his heart when the night lit up with flashing red and blue lights.

She froze momentarily as the source of the light drew her eyes away from her prey.

"LAPD! Drop the knife!" a woman shouted.

-‹◊›-

_A few hours earlier_

A well-dressed, dark-haired man sat in the corner of a well-lit coffee shop, a cup of tea slowly cooling by his arm. A violet handkerchief rested on the table next to the cup; he had used it to clean his glasses, activating a small charm. It wasn't very complex, just encouraging people to look elsewhere.

Sometimes, the man despaired of humanity. So many of them were weak willed, susceptible to even the slightest of manipulations and so unfathomably, stupidly oblivious to the horrors around them. So many died every year due to monsters they dismissed as imaginary, mythical, or fake. Did it really matter all that much if he was the cause of a few of those deaths?

He knew that she would hate him if she was aware of what he did to keep her safe, but when forced to choose between her life and the lives of strangers, he always chose her. There was nothing the man wouldn't do to keep his love safe, but he despised his employers for what they forced him to do.

The man pulled out his phone, an older model that could function around minor charms while still blending in, and dialed his current employer from memory.

"The incubus has not shown," he said.

He paused, listening to his employer's response.

"He was informed of the consequences of tardiness."

He waited for the reply before speaking. "Very well. Shall I contact Mallory?"

He paused again, waiting for a response.

"As you wish."

The man hung up his phone and placed his handkerchief back in the breast pocket of his suit. He stood up from the table and calmly walked towards the door, locking it behind him. He checked the time on his watch then pressed a button on the side of it before walking away.

The canister that he had stuck to the bottom of his table began releasing a clear, odorless, deadly gas. The other patrons wouldn't even realize they were dying until their hearts stopped.

Really, it was a much more humane way of killing them than if he had let the baby incubus eat them like his employer had instructed. At least, that was what he would tell himself later so that he could continue to live with himself.

The man hated dealing with the White Court vampires; their method of feeding was so disgusting. Their complete and utter disdain for humans made them incredibly easy to work around though, especially the younger, more arrogant ones.

Wizards were much more difficult to manipulate, and the man was not looking forward to his upcoming meeting with Elaine Mallory.


End file.
